


Hands To Myself

by Hikari_and_Yami



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Attempt at Humor, AwkwardAtemu, Blindshipping, He is a precious cinnabun, M/M, firstdate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2018-11-04 22:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11000223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hikari_and_Yami/pseuds/Hikari_and_Yami
Summary: So, come on, give me a taste, of what it's like to be next to you. - Blindshipping -





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna be a short, little fun three-shot. Came to me after I read an entry on tumblr about there not being enough awkward, fumbling Atem/u in the fandom. 
> 
> Inspired by 'Hands To Myself' by Selena Gomez.

It's not quite summer yet, and the May breeze lingers in the air, forcing Atem to pull at the sleeves of his thin jacket. 

It's only after the gust of wind subsides, and the feeling of the sun on his skin returns that he is reminded that summer awaits him - June is on the horizon. 

Preoccupied with deadlines and paperwork, Atem sits at the outdoor patio of a local coffee shop, laptop to his right on the flimsy table top, a few scattered folders and papers to his left as he reviews the numbers needed for his upcoming team meeting. Malik, a co-worker of three years, who is assigned to the same project, sits diagonal from him, blondish hair swept up into a bun at the top of his head, as his tan fingers type away at his own work tablet. 

After debating for three solid minutes on what type of drink the spring day calls for, Atem decides on a cold brew to sip on as he enters figures into the excel spreadsheet file saved on his desktop. 

It is midday when he nears what he would describe as a good break point, content with his progress so far as he considers what he wants for lunch. He thinks that the fresh air has boosted his productivity and knows that if he continues on at this pace that he'll be able to get home in time to catch the new episode of his most recent TV obsession. 

Malik interrupts his thoughts, commenting on an outlier. His co-worker's eyes, a unique dark lavender, narrow as he shows Atem a slightly skewed graph on his tablet's screen. 

Atem adjusts the pair of glasses that sit on the bridge of his nose, squinting at the curves of the graph. He rakes a hand through his unruly hair, pulling at the tangled ebony knots. With a sigh, he lowers his arm back to the table and accidentally knocks his plastic coffee cup with his elbow.

He catches it with quick reflexes, but still manages to spill a bit on his loose gray sweatpants. He only narrowly avoids staining his white tank.   

"Hey, watch it there, clumsy." Malik scolds him with a frown. "Kaiba will gladly blacklist us if we show up to the meeting with so much as a smudge on these papers."

Atem settles the plastic cup farther away, out of his accident-prone reach. "Sorry," he apologizes, a faint hue at his cheeks. 

Malik waves him off, not genuinely offended, but still never passing up the opportunity to admonish him. 

Atem looks back at Malik's computer screen. "What data input caused the outlier? Are you sure that - ?” 

Atem cuts his question short at the abrupt sound of the chair across from him being pulled out, its little legs dragging across the cement. 

Before his brain can register anything, someone plops down onto the seat, and suddenly all Atem can see is a pair of ridiculously large eyes the color of wild irises.

"Hi!" the stranger greets, dressed only in a long-sleeve, white cotton shirt and a dark pair of jeans.

Atem blinks a few times, his focus sharpening as he takes in the other's features.

Curls of honey enmeshed in a head of raven hair frame the prettiest face he has ever seen; slowly, he registers long, dark eyelashes, rosy curved cheeks, and perfectly-shaped lips. The stranger's violet eyes flutter at a gentle breeze that passes them, and it is in that moment that Atem's lungs stop working properly.

“My name is Yuugi," the man says, and the sun shines on his cheeks as he speaks, illuminating his face. 

Atem’s jaw loses it's strength and goes slack; there is a deep furrow between his brows.

Was this strange unicorn talking to him or…?

“Uh… hi,” Atem manages to say, and the greeting sounds as bewildered as he feels. 

Yuugi purses his lips, appears amused as he tilts his head, golden locks swaying past his cheeks. Atem still cannot seem to find his breath, and his face flushes from the lack of oxygen. 

“Do you have a name?” the man asks him. 

Does he have a name? Atem has to repeat the question in his head, slowly.

“Oh, yeah, I do. It's Atem.”

The man perks up at this, his eyes brightening, and Atem knows that he will probably pass out any moment now.

“Oh, wow," Yuugi comments, "that totally makes sense."

“Wha - ?”

“So, anyways, I saw you sitting over here,” Yuugi continues on without pause, “and I just _had_ to come over here. Because I mean, look at you.” Yuugi gestures towards him with a hand. “I'd really like to get to know you. So you want to go out on a date?”

The stranger’s question is met with silence, as Atem’s brain short-circuits.

He stares at Yuugi, wide-eyed and confused.

Was he dead? Did he die earlier and just not realize it? Was this heaven?

“Um, hello?” Yuugi leans forward, an elbow on the table, his other hand rising. He taps a knuckle lightly against Atem's forehead. “Anybody home?” he asks, stifling a giggle. 

The contact restarts Atem's brain. “Sorry,” Atem almost coughs out, then breathes in rather sharply. “I actually have no idea what’s happening right now.”

Yuugi smiles at him, and it is the most beautiful thing that has ever graced this earth. Atem is pretty sure that his heart flatlines at the sight.

“That’s okay,” Yuugi tells him. “I mean, you are just like so gorgeous, so you probably have never had to compensate for anything.”

“Wha - ?”

“So, how about this Friday? 7pm work for you?”

Atem can’t keep up, worries that if he opens his mouth again, he’ll just start speaking another language in sheer panic. So instead he nods, and the confirmation causes Yuugi's smile to widen, revealing a perfect row of pearly whites. 

“Great!” Yuugi reaches over and takes a pencil from his side of the table, then writes on the outside margin of one of his folders. “This is my number," Yuugi says to him. "Text me with a place when you think of one." He stands then and turns to walk away, but not before flashing Atem a wink over his round little shoulder. "See you Friday, Atem!”

Atem says nothing as Yuugi leaves. Only once the man is out of sight does he glance side to side, his eyes narrowed in confusion. 

He finally looks up at Malik, who is staring at him in silence. 

Atem opens his mouth.

“Did I just have a stroke?”


	2. Chapter 2

Atem decides on La Mariposa for his date with Yuugi, a local cantina that's both cute and classy, without being _too_ formal.

However, the day of said date, Atem finds himself just barely holding it together. 

He tries to put his contacts in, but the lenses keep folding in his eyes, and they water in irritation. He gives up after he tears his second contact, puts his glasses back on and goes back to his room where his housemate is joyously watching his struggle to ready himself. 

Atem adjusts his clothes and critiques himself. He wonders if Yuugi would prefer him with more muscle. Atem was gifted with a naturally lean frame, but he couldn't put on muscle for the life of him.

With the thought in mind, Atem lowers himself to the floor to do pushups, in hopes that he'll get that natural pump to make his biceps appear bigger for his date.

He gets to twelve before he just lies down on the floor and berates himself for being _so_ stupid. Bakura watches from a nearby chair, bowl of popcorn nestled in his lap as he declares this entire series of events  _'the best thing that's ever happened to him.'_

"You are a mess, Atem," Ryou, his other housemate, accuses, then looks up. "Bakura, out, you're not helping."

The elder man with snow white curls protests, but Ryou is having none of it. He does not relent until Bakura is out of the room, and the door is closed behind him. Once this task is completed, Ryou attempts to coax Atem off the floor. "You need to pull yourself together," he tells him. 

"I'm _trying_ ," Atem stresses, his cheek pressed against the hardwood. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to do here. Should I go for cool or smart or...? Ugh, I just feel like a lost cause here. He's totally out of my league."

"You are just like... the smartest dumb person I know," Ryou says, sitting on the edge of the other's bed. "Atem, you're a total catch. You're getting in your own head here."

Atem sighs and pushes himself up until he's sitting cross-legged on the floor. It's not that Atem was blind to his own looks, but even a sunset would pale in comparison to Yuugi. 

The scarlet-eyed man catches his reflection in the long mirror hanging off his closet's door and begins the process of untangling his hair - a mess of gold and auburn. He sighs again. "You don't get it, Ryou. This man is... I can't explain it."

"Well, don't tell me," Ryou says with a small smile. "Tell him."

"Oh, god no." Atem glances at him. "My brain just turns off when I look at him. You should have seen me when he asked me out."

Ryou chuckles a bit. "Oh, well, I have some idea," he murmurs. 

Atem stops his work on his hair. "Malik told you, didn't he?"

Ryou shrugs, but his face is a dead giveaway. Atem groans. "I am going to look like the biggest fool," he mutters, more to himself. "Maybe I should just cancel."

"Hey, you're not gonna cancel!" Ryou says, almost indignant. "I think it's sweet how riled up this guy gets you. And if he doesn't think so too, then he's not worth it anyway." Ryou stands and reaches out his hand, waiting for Atem to take it. Atem accepts the gesture, though begrudgingly, and Ryou helps pull him up from the floor and dusts the shoulders of his white-dress shirt off. "Now. Go get him, tiger."

 

* * *

 

Out of fear of arriving late to his date, Atem arrives way too early and decides to make himself look busy by reorganizing the sugar packets. The waitstaff offer him wine, and he orders a class of chardonnay in hopes it will calm his nerves and maybe settle his heartbeat, as it is having an utter meltdown within his chest cavity at the moment. 

The young brunette waitress returns with his wine, and he looks up at her. Then, past her. 

And his heart falls still. 

Yuugi is looking around for him, in a simple long-sleeved, purple cotton shirt and a pair of dark jeans. The younger man searches around, before those eyes, the color of an arctic ocean find him. Something blooms in Atem's chest - he is very possibly having a heart attack.

Yuugi walks up to the table with a smile, and yes, Atem is definitely dying. 

"Hey you." Yuugi teases, settling in his chair. "Waiting for somebody?"

Only when Yuugi is seated does he notice Atem's quiet stare. He frowns a bit. "Hey, everything okay?" Yuugi asks him. 

Atem blinks, slowly coming to his senses.  "Sorry," he says, "I was just trying to find the words to describe how beautiful I think you look, but I... can't."

Yuugi's eyes widen in surprise. He opens his mouth, and Atem holds his breath, expecting a poor reaction to such an incoherent mess of words.

"That's... " Yuugi's voice softens, "the sweetest thing anybody has ever said to me. "

Yuugi smiles then, and Atem cannot resist. He smiles back.

The waitress appears then, breaking their gaze, and effectively ending the moment.

Yuugi orders his wine, a cabernet, and she vanishes. Yuugi doesn't seem to have an issue holding conversation, and he talks with ease about his family and his hobbies and about an old card game he used to play for the next sixty minutes. Meanwhile, Atem thinks that forming full coherent sentences should be an Olympic Sport given how utterly impossible it is for Atem to do so. Prior to each sentence, Atem feels the need to swallow a stutter and take a deep breath to steady his voice, because Yuugi is electric and Atem can't help but feel frazzled being in his presence.

It's only when the subject of professions comes up that Atem feels a bit more in his element, as his work is his pride, and conversation about it comes more naturally. 

"You work for Seto?" Yuugi interrupts. 

Atem doesn't hide his surprise. "You know him?"

Yuugi hums around his glass, takes a sip of wine. "Oh, I know Seto," he says. "We're not... close."

Atem snorts, and it's almost a chuckle. "I'd be more surprised if you said you were." 

Yuugi laughs, and is just... so gorgeous, it actually hurts, with small giggles bouncing from his lips, and those eyes sparkling in the dimmed light. Atem takes in that heart-shaped face, flushed from the wine, and he suddenly has little control of his mouth or the words coming out of it. "If I could bottle this up," Atem says, "I would."

Yuugi smiles at him. "Bottle what up?" he asks. 

"This moment."

Yuugi averts his gaze, and the blush darkening Yuugi's cheeks catches Atem off-guard. "Atem," he says with an airy chuckle. "I'm gonna need you to cool it with all the sweet talk, cause you're doing all kinds of things to my heart right now."

Atem flushes furiously, bites his lip, and Yuugi face lights up. "Gosh, you are just so sweet and so gorgeous," Yuugi continues, and Atem can only muster an embarrassed shrug of his shoulders, because he has no idea how to accept compliments from Yuugi. 

The waitress comes to check in on them then, and Yuugi breaks eye contact with Atem to ask her for the check. Atem feels his heart deflate a bit. He doesn't quite want the night to come to an end, though the three glasses of wine he's had is probably a good stopping point, lest his filter just flies away and out of his reach for the rest of the evening. 

The waitress returns, and after they both fuss for a few minutes about covering the bill (before deciding to just split it down the middle), Yuugi looks up at Atem, his eyes a little bit darker, almost playful, but Atem notices that he also looks a bit more vulnerable as well.  

"Hey," Yuugi says. "I don't want to be forward... or at least even more forward than usual," he continues, poking a bit of fun at himself, "but... what do you think about a night recap? I live nearby and I just..."

"... don't really want the night to be over," Atem finishes because wine. 

Yuugi grins, ear to ear. "Yeah," he breathes out, then stands. Atem follows his lead, rising from his seat and grabbing his scarf from the back of the chair. He trails Yuugi out of the cantina and into the darkened sky and brisk Spring evening. It's chilly but nice, not cold - just refreshing and welcoming to someone with a warm buzz. 

Yuugi talks as they walk, about nothing really, but Atem doesn't care, because he likes to hear the dulcet tones in his voice. It's like a blanket he wants to wrap himself in. 

Yuugi's hand brushes against his as they approach an intersection, and Atem grabs onto his hand on instinct, then immediately lets it go. "Sorry," Atem mumbles, thankful that it's dark and hopefully the color in his face is hidden. 

Yuugi laughs a pretty laugh. "No, no, I like it." Yuugi brushes Atem's hand again, intentional this time, and when he coaxes it open, the younger man slips his fingers in between Atem's. "Wouldn't want you to get lost anyways," Yuugi says to him. 

Atem feels his heart flutter with Yuugi's soft palm pressing against his. He looks to his side, into those ridiculously big eyes of blue violets, and feels the blood rushing to his cheeks, and his throat tightening. But still, he manages. "Show me the way," he says. 


End file.
